


The one in which they grew up together

by Alexander_Wesker



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Incest, Light Angst, M/M, Physical Abuse, Ra's is an all-powerfull being and he can change reality as he pleases, Sibling Incest, Twincest, You'll see what I mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-03-01 14:58:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18802648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_Wesker/pseuds/Alexander_Wesker
Summary: [Ra's Al Ghul] almost never interacts with the seams of reality, he likes to watch them unravel in front of him as they are meant to be, but this time he is too curious.It's not so difficult to rewind time in that reality he has set his gaze on.He rewind it until he finds the breaking point. He changes it.His Heir is going to face a great challenge when times are ready...For now He awaits.[Second and Last chapter: The Tale of the twolittleClowns now up]





	1. Introduction - A curious Deity

Ra's al Ghul is an immortal being of incommensurable power, even now that he is ' _dead_ ', banished from the physical plane of this existence, he can _see_.

He can see how the realities develop and how they _destroy_ themselves.

He can see a Bat and a Clown endlessy fighting until the end of everything, himself included.

But this time he is not intrested in following every reality possible, he concentrates his gaze on one in particular.

The one in which the Dark Knight is still only a boy, while his villains are already rising. He liked that reality, it was a new spin in events he has already seen a millionth and an hundred times already.

He ' _lived_ ' in that reality for a while, to see what he could create if he interacted with his Heir before he has ever done in other realities, as it appears it changed nothing... only that his Heir has actually killed him this time, in this reality. A mercy kill, first, and one in which he was tricked in doing.

Ra's looked to that reality, adverting his gaze from his Heir to his Heir's nemesis, the Clown... or, as it appears to be in this reality, the Clowns. He has never seen a reality in which there are two of them, well not entirely true... he has seen it happen, but they were never... brothers. Twins at that.

He is curious. And he is... _disappointed_.

One of them dies before his Heir becomes who he is destinated to be and the other... -- _Ra's can only think of all of that ingenuity wasted._.. -- the Clowns of this reality disappoint him.

_Yet, he is curious of them._

He has never seen two Clowns of the same reality, and he wants to see what they could do.

Ra's almost never interacts with the seams of reality, he likes to watch them unravel in front of him as they are meant to be, but this time he is too curious.

It's not so difficult to rewind time in that reality he has set his gaze on.

He rewind it until he finds the breaking point. He _changes_ it.

He looks at this reality starting to develop itself again, and feels his new physical form smile. He closes his new eyes and waits.

He doesn't want to look at this new world from a plane of non-existence. He wants to ' _live_ ' it.

And this time he has the feeling that the Clowns won't disappoint him.

His _Heir_ is going to face a great challenge when times are ready...

_For now Ra's al Ghul awaits._


	2. The tale of the two little Clowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The times were ready._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Ra’s Al Ghul _Awakened_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for the wait I've put you through guy but I had a major writer's block on this story. I hope you'll like this last chapter anyway. Sorry again for the long wait.

“He is gonna kill us, if he finds us here” Jeremiah said in a hushed tone, his eyes darting from the cheap desk behind which his brother was, to the door of the trailer.

“Mom will keep him occupied enough and if not the door is closed, it’ll give us some time to leave this place” Jerome answered to calm down his twin brother.

“No, scratch that, he’s gonna kill us anyway” Jeremiah muttered, seemingly anxious.

Jerome snickered, while still trying to pick the lock of the desk’s drawer ( _who would have thought that such a cheap desk had a lock so difficult to pick?_ ).

“It’s not fun, Jer”

  
“Oh, come on, ‘Miah, light--”he stopped, a scratching sound broke the silence while the door knob was being turned. The two twins looked at each other, frozen in fear.

 

‘ _Jeremiah, the window_ ’ said the Voice inside his head, its tone dark and deep, it always sound like this when someone is in the way to harm him. Its presence growing until Jeremiah feels the control on his own body slip away.

 

“Jer, the window” Jeremiah heard himself say and then he and his brother rushed towards the small window of the trailer, Jerome shot a glance to the door, luckily for them, Owen was too drunk to notice that the door was locked, they had some time.

Jerome managed to squeeze through the narrow window, and then waited for his brother to do the same, which he did almost too graciously than what Jerome expected him to.

Once the two twin brothers were out of the trailer, they walked away from it, hiding in the shadows of the night to not be spotted by Owen.

 

He didn’t.

 

And the twins started walking in the path between the trailer a bit after.

 

Jeremiah felt the presence of the Voice diminish until he had back the control of his own body, the Voice weight lessening until it was no more than a slight pressure in the back of his head.

 

“Remember me to not follow you, next time you came up with something so stupid” he said after a moment, looking at his brother.

 

“Yeah, I could but then you’d get bored. And bored you makes even stupider things than _this_ ”

 

Jeremiah sighed “True” he agreed at last.

 

“Even if trying to poison mom by lacing her drinks with rat poison was, like, your best idea ever” Jerome said, not worried that someone would hear him, since everyone was either passed out or sleeping. Anyways there was a strong stench of alcohol everywhere, and it didn’t combine well with the stale smell of deep fried corn-dogs, buttered popcorn and the sweet note of cotton candy that were still lingering in the air from the morning and evening.

 

“It was, until she saw me doing it and beat me black and blue with uncle’s Zach belt. Well at least she didn’t kill me so that’s something”

 

“She shouldn’t have raised a hand against you” Jerome growled, a rush of anger was making his blood boil.

 

“She shouldn’t hurt you either but here we are” Jeremiah said, his tone was devoid of almost all emotions, Jerome hated it. “And technically speaking she didn’t raise a hand against me, she used the belt after all” he added, there was a hint of bitterness in his tone but a small smile on his lips as if he was trying to make a joke out of the situation.

 

“Not funny, ‘Miah”

 

“Sorry for trying to lighten the mood, Jer” Jeremiah shot back sarcastically.

 

“Well try for something less close to home next time”

 

Silence fell between the twins as the walked towards their ‘home’, where their mother was passed out on the couch, her skit raised and her legs still spread open, the air smelled of sweat, alcohol and sex.  But of her choosed-for-the-night-companion there was no trace.

The two boys adverted their eyes from their mother, while almost gagged for the unpleasant smell, they went into their ‘room’ – a little part of the principal living space of the trailer, that was divided from the rest by an old bamboo screen – picked up their shared pillow and went out again to sleep outside, which was preferable to trying to bear that foul smell.

They hid behind the trailer and cuddled, their faces almost too close one another, but they didn’t care, it had been like this for all their lives… at least now they could share everything together without being bothered by it.

But Jerome wasn’t able to fall asleep, even with his twin curled up against him.

“What’s wrong, Jer?”his brother asked, noticing the concern on Jerome’s face.

 

“Back at Owen’s trailer, it was _it_ , wasn’t it?”

 

“uh? What are you talking about?”

 

A flare of anger flashed in Jerome’s green eyes at the question. “ You know what I’m talking about, don’t play dumb with me.” His voice was low and had the hint of a growl but the boy seemed to try and hold back his anger while continuing “ It was  _it_ , wasn’t it, Jeremiah? You let  _it_ take control of you again” he hissed, his tone heated by the anger he was barely able to contain.

  
“It’s not like I  _let it_ take control, Jer. I’ve already told you,  _it_ … just does.” Jeremiah responded annoyed. But it quickly faded in a preoccupied almost panicked  tone, panic barely contained behind his forced blank expression.  “ _It_ … just grows, like a dull pressure inside my head and then I’m not the one in control anymore, and I… I don’t know how to reverse it, J, I can only watch what  _it_ does with my body until  _it_ recedes back, settling deep inside my head...”

 

“ _It_ is taking control more often lately” Jerome commented in a whisper as though he didn’t want to be heard by his twin. But Jeremiah heard him anyway, not that Jerome could actually hide his whispered comment since they were so close, and this time he didn’t even try to hide the panic that bloomed in his chest.

 

“I’m _scared_ , J… What if _it_ decides to not let me regain control on myself?”

 

“If it does happen, I’ll find a way to force _it_ to do it. It’s a promise” Jerome said, determination glittering in his eyes, the anger long gone after seeing, _feeling_ , the fear felt by his brother.

 

Jeremiah tried to let Jerome’s word calm his anxiety but the low, dark chuckle the sounded deep inside his mind stopped him from doing so. ‘ _Don’t worry, Jeremiah_ ’ the Voice said, its tone deep and rich and strangely soothing ‘ _I do not intend to take control of your body without ever giving it back_ ’.

Yet the Voice sounded too pleased with his fear to be reassuring in any way.

 

The Voice scared him too much for it to calm him down, even if  _it_ truly tried.

 

And to think that it wasn’t always like this.

There was a moment in his life in which Jeremiah was sure that there weren’t any voices in his head beside from his own. He didn’t even know from where the Voice came from, and why it was so different from his own voice.  _It_ was in his head but  _it_ sounded all wrong,  _it_ was too deep, too sultry and suave to be his.  _It_ even felt like another being nested deep inside his mind, something that  _carved_ out a place for  _itself_ inside his brain, readjusting everything that was around  _it_ .

 

Jeremiah hated that feeling, the feeling of something probing his thoughts, touching what  _it_ wasn’t allowed to. But it wasn’t until lately that  _It_ started scaring him.

_It_ was careful,  _it_ started slowly showing his hand, taking control every now and then, but nothing too worrying until some weeks ago.

Jeremiah woke up, in the middle of their mother’s trailer – as if he had sleepwalked out of  their ‘room’– feeling something warm and wet on his hands, and when he looked he saw... red. A deep, bright red coating his fingertips and stuck under his nails, as if he had scratched something so deep to make it bleed.

‘ _Don’t worry about remembering what happened. It’s best if you don’t_ ’ the Voice said, and for once _it_ sounded cold and incredibly angry, furious even.

 

Jeremiah noted that something was wrong when he saw his mother avoiding him, healing scratches that ran down her arms. And he couldn’t help but thinking that it was his fault.

‘ _I did what I did to defend you_ ’ the Voice said.

 

But then it happened again, and again, and  _again_ … and Jeremiah wasn’t sure that  _it_ was really defending him anymore. He always felt tired and sore as if he had been training with the performers, and he knew things that he didn’t knew before.

He was always the studious one, he wasn’t much of a performer like Jerome was, he never tried to learn an act as Jerome did. Yet he found that he could throw a knife just as accurately as Jerome or Miss Young could, but he didn’t even learned it, he  _didn’t remember doing it_ . But Jerome seemed ecstatic, and saying things like ‘ _Glad to see you don’t think you’re better of us, circus folk, anymore_ ’ or ‘ _Finally you gave up that stupid idea of leaving the circus_ ’, and instead of being cruel with him, he joked and smiled and talked as if they had always been close like this.

 

He started calling him ‘ _Miah_ without any venom in his voice… (Jeremiah told him about the Voice but never told him that it was  _it_ the reason of his training and of his new ‘integration’ with the others) but the thing that Jeremiah couldn’t wrap his head around was… w _hy Lila seemed so scared of him_ , yes, she would still beat him almost leaving him unconscious if she was drunk enough… but those rare times she was sober she seemed utterly terrified of him.

 

But he ultimately remembered what happened that night. All it took was his dear, caring brother to kiss him, slow and lovingly trying to help him forget his fear, at the moment, for him to remember.

 

_His mother’s eyes were wide, pupils dilated, she stank of cigarettes and booze and something that he couldn’t recognize, the smell of alcohol so dense around her that Jeremiah could basically taste the sickeningly sweet, dry liquor on his tongue just by taking in a breath. She took him by the wrist, her grip bruising tight, and dragged him in her bedroom._

“ _Mom?”he said an inquiring inflection in his voice, suspect and fear gripping his heart and made it beat fast, too fast, while she pushed him on her bed, her grip on his wrists stronger than he would have expected. She leaned towards him, her dark eyes pointed on his lips. “Mom… stop” he whispered forcing his voice to come out even if shock had overtaken him clogging his throat._

 

“ _Shh, no need to be scared, Jeremiah” she said her word heavy and slightly slurred “Mommy is gonna make you feel good, my sweet baby boy”_

_Jeremiah’s eyes widened, he tried to free his wrists from his mother’s grip, tried to get her off of him, futilely. He parted his lips to plead her, to beg her to please let him go, but any of his words were cut off by her lips pressed against his own._

_She invaded his mouth, her tongue slithering in and he didn’t want any of this!_

 

 

Jerome was gentle, caressing the side of Jeremiah’s face with his hand, kissing him softly, asking and waiting for his permission to go further, letting him go on at his own pace. Jeremiah moaned, the sound drowned between them as their kiss got deeper, their tongues met, caressing each other. Jerome’s hands went up, tangling with his hair, Jeremiah wrapped his arms around his brother’s waist, pulling him impossibly closer.

Happily accepting the pleased sound that the action caused Jerome.

 

_Lila didn’t listen to his pleads. She just pinned his wrists up above his head, crawling over him, leaving sloppy kisses on his neck and whispering praises against his skin. Her cheap red lipstick smeared on him, looking like fresh blood splattered on his pale skin._

_And Jeremiah felt like he was going to cry, like he was going to be sick, because of her kisses and her saccharine filled words, and the fucking stench of alcohol that surrounded them. He tried to scream or cry out for help (Jerome, please help. Jerome, please help me. Jeromepleasestopher!)but she was even in her drunken state, surprisingly, fast. Pinning his wrists with one hand and slapping the other on his mouth, muffling his screams._

“ _Shh, baby” she whispered, lifting her hand as soon as he stopped screaming, “Don’t act like this, you’re gonna love it” she dragged her hand down his chest, slowly looking at him through half-lidded dark eyes and with a slight smile on her lips._

_Jeremiah thought to try calling out for help again but stopped, she was just gonna shut him up again what good was he going to achieve by getting her angry?, then he felt a slight pressure built in the back of his head, inside his mind as if something big was slowly wakening._

 

And this was when he froze, the image the _memory_ clear in his mind. He couldn’t feel Jerome, and how warm and how loved he made him feel. Jeremiah could just see Lila, his own mother, and hear hers sickeningly sweet drawled out voice in his ears.

And she was on him, her arms around him, _he couldn’t move! He couldn’t….!_

And she was calling his name, _Jeremiah, Jeremiah, Jeremiah…_

 

“Jeremiah!”Lila breathed voice faded out, morphing in Jerome’s worried voice. And finally he could see what was really in front of him. Jerome, his brother, his twin.

 

Jeremiah flew into his brother’s arm, knocking both of them down – when exactly they ended up sitting, he didn’t know – clinging tightly on him. He hid his face against his neck, crying unknowingly from himself. Jerome embraced him, whispering soothing words to him, reassuring him that he was ‘ _safe_ ’ and that ‘ _he was okay_ ’, that ‘ _he would have always protected him_ ’.

Jerome talked and Jeremiah silently cried, the Voice silent, but present with _its_ dull weight in the back of his head, and that weight almost felt as if _it_ was saying an _I told you so_ , albeit not a mocking one but one which dripped resignation.

 

And slowly Jeremiah calmed down, and when he did, Jerome cautiously asked him what had happened, if he had inadvertently done something wrong.

And Jeremiah told him, told him what happened, not holding back even if he wanted because in the end Jerome always knew when he lied or was hiding something from him. He told him and felt like he was going to cry again.

Because _he was so weak, so useless_ … _because if it hadn’t been for the Voice, Lila would have done much, much worse_.

 

Jerome distanced himself a bit from Jeremiah, which felt his heart ache because… t _hat was it, wasn’t it? He was so weak that it disgusted even his brother and now he was going to leave him alone_ \- but before Jeremiah could lose himself in his self-deprecating spiral, he heard a low, almost animalistic, growl come from his brother which was clenching his fists so much that his knuckles had became white. There was such a rage, no, it wasn’t simply rage, Jerome was irradiating wrath, pure, unhinged, hot wrath. And then he was on his feet, and the look on his face was outright murderous.

“That’s it,” he said “No more second chances for that _bitch_ , not anymore. How could she?! To her own son.” his voiced faded, but Jeremiah could sense the finality in his words.

 

_This was the night._

_This was the night they would get free._

_This was the night._

 

“We’ll do this together” Jeremiah said, his voice wasn’t as steady as he wanted and even his body wavered a bit while he got to his feet. But he forced himself to be as still as he wanted. Even if he was still feeling Lila’s hands on him, even with her voice settled deep within, whispering how much of a good boy he was, and how good he was for her. Even if he felt like he was gonna break down again.

 

“We will” was all that Jerome said back. And they did, together.

 

Jerome’s presence steadying Jeremiah, as they dragged her upon the hill, away from everyone who could have heard her screams, waking her up in the process. She did scream and ordered them to leave her, she did shriek like a banshee but the brothers didn’t listen to a single word that came out of her mouth, shoving her down in the dirt and shushing her words against the grass.

Almost seventeen years of pent up rage releasing in that single moment, hit after hit, as the brothers made her pay for every single mistreatment that she put them through.  


“This is how it begins” the Voice whispered in Jeremiah’s brain, as the boy brought down his fist against his mother’s face once again, blood covering his hand and then the presence of the Voice grew and grew, and grew, and Jeremiah couldn’t almost breathe, a deep, unsatisfied thirst for blood that occupied all of his senses, and just like that the Voice was gone, a jolt of pain and joy run through Jeremiah’s nerves.

Just as his brother handed him the hatchet they brought with them.

 

Jeremiah took it, and felt a smile slowly creeping up his face. His nerves crying out in pain and singing with overwhelming joy all at once, without the presence in his head he felt unbalanced as if something lacked. All is carefully built in defenses from the presence that was in him crumbled down under the weight of _nothing_ , of the empty space that _It_ left behind. And Jeremiah laughed as he brought down the hatched, drowning the sound of Lila’s cry and the wet crack of the bones of her arm as the blade of the weapon cut it as a quite fragile branch.

 

The air filled with the coppery smell of blood, and with the howling laughter of the two remaining Valeska.

 

Such happiness filled their hearts that night, early, very early morning to be honest, while covered in blood and blood-soaked mud. And yes, they eventually ended up needing some help, which the blind fortune teller was quite alright in giving. Maybe he was terrified by the insanity that leaked from the brother’s voices, maybe he was scared by how happy they sounded, maybe it was something else but he did help them in discarding any evidence left, namely their gore covered clothes and the hatchet.

 

The brothers were happy.

And then Fate, Fortune or whatever it was seemed to remember their existence, turned back and fucked them over.

 

“I know you two killed her” said the Detective, his name ironically starting with a J even if the brothers couldn’t remember what it was in its totality. It had passed barely a day, and the two brother couldn’t stop themselves from glaring at the blind man who snitched them, because they just wanted to be left alone and go for their merry way alone, but no, of course they had to pay for killing that abusive, drunken bitch.

 

The twins put on a smile, a Cheshire Cat-wide smile, looking down at the policemen and the guards when they came and brought them to Arkham.

 

Without a trial.

 

Because in the end, why would they expect anything else? No one cared about them, a part from themselves, so why would the city of Gotham worries into giving them a right trial before locking them up in an Insane Asylum?

 

* * *

 

 

And while all of this was happening a being as old as time as powerful as anything else, looked upon them and smiled.

Smiled because his plan worked. The two brothers were as close as two brothers could and shouldn’t have been.

 

Ra’s Al Ghul looked upon the two Clowns and smiled again, they were perfect, just as he thought they would be. Two little monsters, two little weapons molded by him to be the perfect nemesis for his Heir.

Seeing all unfolding just as he wanted made the unpleasant memory of being nested like a parasite in the mind of one of the Clown bearable.

 

Ra’s Al Ghul was above anything human, but laughed delighted when he saw the plan of the rich aristocrat known as Theodore Galavan just retort against himself, when the little Clown in which Ra’s had been nested time ago, killed him with a bladed throwing card just before he could slain his brother.

Oh, the other Clown did die anyway, but this time it was something more spectacular, which was a shot through the neck from a sniper.

He returned eventually and he and his brother did cause a lot of chaos and despair in the city.

And Ra’s’ Heir became a bit more darker at every kill he couldn’t stop, at every bomb that he couldn’t find.

 

Ra’s Al Ghul was above all human things but the reality he molded from scratch, that was almost a gem for him. Different from anything he had already seen.

 

Two Clowns, One Bat.

 

The two Jokers of the Deck playing together in a match that only them knew the rules for, dragging a Big, Black, Angry Bat down with them in their downwards spiral of never ending madness. And with so many possible endings that waited just to unfold in front of his eyes.

 

And then it was _time_.

 

Ra’s Al Ghul smiled, ‘ _we’ll see each other soon enough_ ’ he whispered in the dreams of blood and violence, of lust mingled with cruelness, of the Clown he once was one with.

 

 

_The times were ready._

 

Ra’s Al Ghul looked down on Gotham, and smiled in this new physical form that was his and only his.

 

The times were ready, and he was curious on how this darker version of his young heir would have reacted to his presence.

 

_The times were ready._

 

Ra’s Al Ghul Awakened, and the Legion of Shadows bowed to their _god_.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this little chapter, the next will be longer I assure you.


End file.
